Some apprehensions
To confess, I am apprehensive that some sections may be abused by the powerful and used as instruments of State terrorism against the powerless. Here in a birds-eye view are Sections that may unsettle the people because they allow law enforcement agents:
1. To place a terror suspect under surveillance (Section 7);
2. To arrest and detain terror suspects without warrants (Section 18);
3. To examine a terror suspects bank deposits and financial papers (Section 27); and
4. To seize, sequester and freeze bank deposits, financial papers and properties of all kinds or nature of terror suspects (Section 39).
Let us discuss them briefly one at a time.
I. Under Section 7, when the law enforcement agents place a terror suspect under surveillance, they may use the most sophisticated gadgets available in the market like the so-called Magic Lantern and the Carnivore to search the suspects written communications and tap his or her (verbal) conversations. And they can do the surveillance without the person being made aware in the slightest of the search and tapping going on in the innermost recesses of his or her home or office or places of leisure, even.
Perhaps, one saving grace is that the law enforcement agents cannot simply do the surveillance by their own authority and discretion.
Judicial approval
They need judicial approval to begin the surveillance. And not just any judge would do. They have to apply for permission to do so with the Supreme Court designated-division of Court of Appeals. Not only that. The basis for the authority to surveill a person is probable cause, a phrase, that you and I know, has legal meaning. The applicant requesting for the authority and his or her witnesses need to be examined personally by the Justices concerned so that its reasonableness and necessity are duly established.
I introduced two safeguards here: 1. The permission should be secured from the proper division of the Court of Appeals, and, 2. That probable cause should be established as basis for granting the authority.
II. Under Section 18, a terror suspect may be placed under arrest or detention without warrant.
That sounds alarming. It would even alarm lawyers more to know that when the anti-terror bill was being crafted, there were proposals from elements of the AFP to grant soldiers the power to detain suspects without warrant for up to 120 days. The PNP suggested a lower period, 90 days. When the Committee submitted its report to the Senate, the period was reduced to 15 days. During the debates, Senators Miriam Defensor Santiago and Frank Drilon successfully reduced the period of warrantless detention to 5 days.
3-day maximum
On my turn, I convinced the Senate that the Constitution has fixed a maximum of 3 days for warrantless arrests. I pointed out that even when the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in times of insurrection or rebellion, the maximum number of days for which a person may be detained is three days (Article 7, Section 18, of the Constitution).
2007 Elections, Terrorism
